Man charged with felony in chase with deputies

BIG BRANCH - A Chapmanville man was charged with felony fleeing in a vehicle, driving revoked and felony grand larceny after a chase with deputies ended with the suspect crashing the vehicle he was driving.

Lowell Edward Young, 25, was charged in the incident.

According to the criminal complaint, on the night of March 3, the suspect was allegedly behind the wheel of a Kia SUV, and according to deputies M.A. Dingess and C.T. Daniels, nearly struck their cruiser in the Big Branch Road area of Greenview.

The officers activated their siren and blue lights while pursuing the vehicle up Big Branch Road at speeds exceeding 60 mph. In the pursuit, the vehicle struck a gate and destroyed it while traveling up a rough, muddy road at 40 mph before crashing into an embankment.

According to the complaint, two of the three occupants were apprehended after a a search in the woods; the third man was captured immediately.

One of the men told officers that he begged the suspect to stop the car and considered jumping from the moving vehicle. The man also communicated that the two men who picked him up had told him that they were caught tampering with an ATV earlier that night in Jeffrey. The vehicle appeared to be carrying multiple stolen items and the ignition of the car was hot wired, but the car had not been reported stolen at the time of the incident.